Decadence
by TillThatTime
Summary: It wasn’t hard to imagine the tan hands that traced gently along her skin were paler, colder, crueler, what did take more time was accepting the fact that they weren’t. ANGST!


**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the song Pretty Girl. **

A/N: This is my first Naruto fic and honestly it is not what I would have expected as my first considering I am, for the most part, a slash writer and I used to find Sakura so annoying that I was tempted to reach into my computer screen and strangle her with my cable wire. (That is until I saw Shippuuden, now she kicks ass) However, the song honestly made me think of this plot, so I had to write it. I know most people don't like song-fics, but eh, just skip over the lyrics if they bother you that much. Reviews are like crack, or some other form of addicting substance, and I'm an addict!

Warning: NOT A HAPPY FIC!

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Decadence

Pretty girl is suffering  
while he confesses everything

He was leaving again.

Only four months after being drug back home by one Uzumaki Naruto he was once again walking past that figurative border and out of her life.

As she watched his retreating back, bag slung casually over one shoulder, she felt a stab of sickening familiarity at the sight. She had seen this before. Years before she had stood in nearly this same spot and watched as he killed her with each step he took. It was a sharp slap to the face. Completely expected, but no less painful. She had known, all along she had known, and yet she had let him do it again.

Pretty soon she'll figure out  
what his intentions were about.

After he had left the first time the sensation the was left to run loose in her body was more than anything she had ever felt. No past account of happiness or anger, not even when she had seen him lying on the ground, presumed dead, could match the overwhelming weight of devastation. He had left and she was ruined, because no matter how much of an annoying fan girl she might have acted like, no matter how much she had _clung_ and _whined _and _cooed_ and stalked around like some school girl drooling over the "cool guy", it had been so much deeper than that. His looks were nothing. His talents, while impressive, those too were nothing. She had wanted everything from him, not selected and trivial perks, but everything.

Everything he had never been willing to give her.

She had loved him and because of that she was beyond repair.

She had spent so long trying to look past what every part of her was screaming for. She had fought to destroy the image of coal eyes and sneering lips. She had thrown herself into her training, partly because she longed to be strong enough to one day bring him back and partly because she prayed to one day be strong enough not to need him back.

Eventually she had pushed herself to find comfort in the arms of someone who was more that willing to give away the love that she had for so long wanted to feel from another. He was there to press her lips to. He was there to be an anchor. He was there to say the words that would mean so much more if they ever came from the lips of someone else.

She used him.

Used him, because if she didn't she would surely collapse. It wasn't hard to imagine the tan hands that traced gently along her skin were paler, colder, crueler, what did take more time was accepting the fact that they weren't.

She had let those blue eyes love her, though she knew that she would never fully be able to return the gesture, and she had forgot the black ones that were never soft for her. She had convinced herself that if he ever came back she would not give him the power to break her again.

She had been a damned fool.

And that's what you get for falling again  
you can never ger him out of your head.  
that's what you get for falling again  
you can never get him out of your head.

And then, though at the time her eyes would not let her accept it, he was back. Uzumaki Naruto had finally succeeded in completing the promise he had made years before. He had brought him home from the hands of that bastard snake, much to the raven haired man's chagrin. He was pissed about it, whether it was because he didn't want to be back or because Naruto had completely defeated him, she wasn't sure, but he was home. She had watched with disbelieving eyes as they had both set foot inside the city, her ears deaf to the shouts of joy around her as she stood silent. Even as tan hands had drawn her in for a kiss, her eyes had stayed wide and directly planted on _him_.

All that work to try to forget him was completely destroyed under his cold, vacant stare.

It's the way that he makes you feel.  
It's the way that he kissed you.

He was still cold to her, perhaps even colder than he had been before, but she couldn't help but notice the way the tips of his fingers would linger on her skin when he would accidentally brush against her.

Whether or not these were movements exaggerated by her own self conscious, she wasn't sure, but they made her shiver anyways.

And then, only two weeks after being brought back, two weeks of choosing to ignore her, he had leaned in close to her ear, ignoring the fact that Naruto stood only a few feet away, and whispered in a low voice, his breath dancing tauntingly over her skin, "You can't seem to forget me can you?"

It's the way that he makes you fall in love.

She wasn't like she used to be. She didn't follow him around like some bitch in heat anymore. She coaxed herself to return his cold familiarity, to prove to him that she didn't want nor need him anymore, no matter how much she didn't believe it herself. She owed it to herself, owed it to her pride.

But he was not such a fool as she.

He knew.

She's beautiful as usual  
with bruises on her ego.

He didn't need those damned eyes that marked him to see that she would never be able to think so little of him. Whether he wanted her or not, she was his. Everything she had molded herself to be belonged to him. And she hated herself even more for the fact.

She knew that while everyone else fell blindly for her little act of coldness he could see straight through her facade and into her weakness. She knew that he knew in the way that his eyes would linger on hers as a moment passed between them whenever their eyes would catch. There would always be something different about his usually blank stare in those moments of seemingly insignificance. It was almost...taunting. That was the only word that she could seem to find to properly describe it. It wasn't enough that the bastard owned everything she was, but he had to shove it back in her face with the amusement evident in his pitch black eyes? She wanted to hate him for it, she really did.

And her killer instincts  
Tell her to beware of evil men.

She knew the dangers of giving herself back to him. It terrified her to watch as tan hands paled in her treacherous imagination. And that smirk, that condescending smirk, stayed ever present in her line of vision, even when she closed her eyes tight to block it out.

She didn't want to be hurt, not like that, not ever again. Yet, she continued to let him effect her body and mind with one simple turn of the head in her direction. She felt like a twelve year old girl again and it made her sick with shame.

All those feelings that she had told herself were buried deep within her came flooding back with a force that threatened to drown her very existence. She loved him, had _always_ loved him, and no amount of brute strength that had been obtained in years of hard work, determination and suffocating depression could change that fact.

And that's what you get for falling again  
you can never ger him out of your head.  
that's what you get for falling again  
you can never get him out of your head.

She found herself standing in the dead of night outside his door in his family compound. Even though the unsettling feeling in her stomach screamed that she was making the wrong choice, she had decided that it was time to finally talk to him. She couldn't take his knowing stares anymore. She couldn't take the smirks and the teasing touches. She would never be that strong. So, she had convinced herself to talk to him, scream at him, beg him, whatever it took to either get him to stop this torture that only he was capable of administering or to do something that she couldn't bring herself to believe would actually ever happen.

She rose a shaking hand to rest against the wood of the door. It was smooth and cool under the trembling of her knuckles and heated skin and as she pulled her hand back to knock she felt the latch give away and the door swung slowly, almost menacingly, open on its own. A sharp pang of dread burrowed its way into her gut as the cold air hit her face as her shoes tapped against the tile. As she looked around she took in her surroundings, his home. It was simple, sparsely furnished and impeccably clean. Just what she would have expected from him. She noticed his family crest that adorned the walls and she grimaced as she thought of the horrors that had taken place inside these walls.

She soon found herself inside his bedroom and she found that too to be empty, devoid of any living presence besides her own. As she made her way over to his lone dresser she noticed the old picture that all of the former Team Seven owned. She picked it up gingerly, almost afraid it might shatter in her hands, and she felt her heart clench as she noticed the dust that was caked to the frame and glass. It covered the faces of her old teammates and sensei, and she wouldn't have been able to recognize them if she didn't already know the details of the picture by heart. There were the faces of her mentor, her lover and the one man that she would give up everything for, defaced by the cruelty of the passing years. But where her face was, the dust had been removed, as if a thumb had glided across it, taking the proof of time and neglect along with it.

It was then that she noticed the closet standing open and empty in her line of vision. Realization hit her full force and the picture slipped from her hands to shatter against the hard floor. And without a thought to what this would do to her, she bolted for the door.

Pretty girl  
Pretty girl

She allowed her feet to carry her to the very spot where she had stood nearly five years before. It didn't take her long to spot him as her green eyes darted nervously, searching for something of familiarity. First she noticed the pack hanging lightly across one lean shoulder, a forgotten burden filled with the things he held in the world that were of no importance at all. Next came the posture that could not be obtained through training but rather by being born with a type of elegance no amount of practice could allow one to duplicate. Last came the hair, blue-black with spikes falling in organized chaos alongunblemished, pale skin, the style noticeable to anybody who happened to know him.

Her heart sank and once again she felt the world quickly caving in around her However, this sensation was followed by something new, a feeling too cold and numb to merely be described as anger.

Pretty girl is suffering  
While he confesses everything.  
Pretty soon she'll figure out  
You can never get him out of your head.

"You're leaving again, aren't you?" It wasn't even really a question, but rather a statement, and her voice sounded dead even to her own ears.

He stopped as he heard the sound of her voice, but he didn't not turn to face her. It angered her. Was she not even worth a single glance in her direction?

"I don't belong here."

His answer was short, mundane and utterly true. He didn't belong there, with them, with her. No matter how much people might respect who he was, care for him, _love_ himthis was never the place for him to be comfortable, at ease, and welcomed by the people who eagerly insisted that he was.

"I'm not going to scream at you to stop, you know. I'm not going to stand here and tell you how much I love you and how much I want you to stay." Her voice was steady, strong and believable.

And it hurt. Oh God, it hurt.

He turned then, his face emotionless like cold, hard, incredibly beautiful glass. His black eyes locked with hers, unyielding in the quiet battle that passed between them. "But that would not change the fact that you do."

You do love me.

His words sliced at her harsher than any deceleration of how annoying she was could, because it was the truth. No matter how much she might attempt to tell herself and everyone around her that it wasn't, no matter how much she didn't want it to be, it was the truth.

I do love you.

It's the way that he makes you cry  
It's the way that he's in your mind  
It's that way that he makes you fall in love.

She did not say anything as her eyes fell to ground, unable look at him any longer for fear that he might see the shame that he was already aware that she possessed. He turned and continued on walking, and that's when the desperation hit her. She couldn't stop the words that flew from her mouth next. Her mind screamed to let him go, to be done with this pain, to be done with him, but she was never good at listening to reason when it came to him.

And despite all that she had said before, these words were the real truth.

"Don't...don't do this." He stopped once again, his back facing her as her body shook. "I _will_ scream for you to stop. I _do_ want you to stay. And I _do_ _love you_. God, I love you so much, and it hurts like hell to have worked so hard to forget you and to have made so much progress, and then to be right back in the same place with just one look from you! So don't do this to me...not again!" Her voice was cracking by the end, her words barely above a whisper, and she was crying, as much as she hated the proof of her weakness falling onto the stone ground, she was crying.

And then he was in front of her, her face caught between the firm grip of his calloused hands. "Stop it." Her eyes must of held confusion because he took her face more firmly, forcing her to look him directly in the eyes. "Stop this masochist behavior that you seem to continuously put yourself through. Stop chasing after something that you are smart enough to realize that you will never be able to get. _Stop loving me_." The last part seemed to hold traces of pain. It was small, but it was there.

"I can't-"

"Then try!" She was shocked by his sudden outburst and she flinched under his gaze. His face softened slightly. "At least try. If you love me like you say you do, then love me enough to turn around and forget about me. Love me enough to not even think of my face after this moment. Love me enough to do this for me." Then he leaned in, his chapped lips brushing gently across her forehead, before leaning next to her ear and whispering, "Please Sakura, go home to Naruto."

As he pulled away, his cold expression was set back into place and his hands fell away from her face, and with nothing there to hold her weight, she fell heavily to the ground, and didn't even attempt to stop him as she heard his quiet retreating footsteps.

"Sasuke."

It's that way that he makes you feel  
It's that way that he kisses you  
It's that way that he makes you fall in love.

When she looked back up again, he was gone. Once again, he had left her. His request for her to forget him was unreasonable and impossible, and she wanted to scream what a fool he was to believe that she was capable of something like that, but she knew that the only true fool was she. She would no longer chase him, but she would never be able to forget him.

"Looks like it's a wish I can not honor, Sasuke." She whispered into the cold night air before shakily pulling herself to her feet. She was once again left damaged and mangled by the only man she seemed to be able to love.

Broken broken broken.

Everything about her reeked of him, reeked of what he had done to her, of how he had destroyed her. A grim smile forced its way onto her lips as she thought about honoring at least one of his requests. With one last look in the direction of the man she could never have, she began the slow journey back to the man she never wanted. Yes, she would go back to him. Back to the arms that would accept her shattered pieces. Back into the arms of Uzumaki Naruto.

She wondered if he too could smell her decadence.


End file.
